Jackdaw's Song
by PlaidButterfly
Summary: As the reign of Empress Emily the Wise begins, everyone expects a period of peace and prosperity... but Corvo knows the Outsider has trials for him yet. Low Chaos Corvo.
1. First Flight

Piero had to admit that of the many changes that had come with the past two months, most were quite agreeable to him. The curing of the plague made working with Sokolov tolerable. The new Empress Emily's coronation had been a quietly grand thing that made the entire city a much brighter place. Oh, and as one of the Royal Physicians, he was given rather nice accommodations at the palace.

What he was not fond of, however, was this new game of Where The Hell Has Corvo Gone.

Not that Corvo had been easy to find before, but then it was expected that the man would slither through the shadows and pop up just when Piero was least prepared for him to ask with excruciating politeness if he could buy a few more sleeping darts. And honestly now most of his time was spent hovering around the Empress Emily in constant vigil of whatever threats she would face. When he wasn't, though - well, that was the problem. It made Piero nervous. He liked to think that nervousness was prudent. He liked the man well enough, but bad things tended to follow whenever Corvo adamantly made himself unable to be found.

As he came up onto the ramparts, he was panting a bit from the steep stairs, and blinked owlishly at the harsh daylight. First properly clear day in weeks, it seemed. Or maybe he'd just been too busy cooped up delivering the cure to every plague victim in the city. But that work was over, and he had promised to tell Corvo personally, if only he could find the damn man…

He squinted, putting his hands up above his eyes, adjusting his glasses. And as he saw the other end of the palace ramparts, Piero gave a strangled and incoherent scream before bolting forward.

Corvo lifted his head momentarily to see Piero running towards him, but continued to stuff something down the barrel of one of the cannons in a completely nonchalant way. A few more tweaks, a pause to light the fuse, and then, with his usual disregard for gravity and the laws of physics, he hopped up on top of the cannon. It bucked forward with a roar, but he smoothly moved with it, standing on top of it proudly. Smoke shrouded him for a moment - only a moment, thanks to the sea breeze. And out somewhere in the distance, the cannon's irregular shot finally found its way into the ocean, a glint of metal in-between glimmering waves.

Piero was wheezing by the time he finished running down the ramparts. "You… you just…?" He spluttered madly as Corvo hopped down, one leg still unnaturally stiff. "But… that…"

"Was the mask you made me, yes," Corvo said pleasantly.

"But… you…!"

"Just shot it out into the sea." Corvo looked behind him as Piero continued to splutter. "It was a very fine mask. And I thank you for it. But I don't have the need for it any longer."

"That… that was my master work! My Outsider-inspired creation!" Piero had now caught his breath enough to properly wail. "And you just - you just-! In the ocean! …You bloody Serkonian idiot!"

Corvo looked somewhat sheepish as he clasped his hands behind his back. "Well, perhaps it was rude of me, but I think that you can agree times have changed." The other man continued to splutter, red in the face. "…Besides, I'm not entirely an idiot. I'm not foolish enough to completely ignore someone interested in marrying me while pursuing another who barely knows my name."

Piero had been about to ready another round of spluttered invective before Corvo's relatively nonchalant comment caught him completely off-guard. The red rising in his cheeks seemed to flood there more in earnest as he remembered Corvo catching him spying on Callista in the bath. "W-well, I - I was just trying to make sure the young Empress Emily received a proper education in the natural sciences by working with her tutor. Or wanting to work with her tutor." Corvo's expression remained irritatingly pleasant, even as he started to stride towards the stairs leading down off the ramparts. Piero jogged to catch up. "…And what do you mean, someone else? There's nobody, I'm sure -"

"Yes there is," Corvo said smoothly. Piero's eyes darted down to Corvo's leg, noting that he was still walking with a limp. "Red hair, honest-looking face?" Piero stared at Corvo blankly. "…Rather nice figure? Wore a cap? …No?"

As they walked, Piero scoffed lightly. "I'm almost certain you're making her up."

"I most certainly am not. Her name is Cecelia, and she's manager at the Hound Pits now, last I checked. Besides - "

Too late. Piero's interest had already flitted to another topic. "Your leg."

Corvo's shoulders drew in, tight with nervousness. "It's fine. I told you before, it was just a sprain…"

"A sprain would have been healed by now," Piero said with a sniff, adjusting his glasses. "And I thought I told you to stay off it, regardless." Corvo shied away like a nervous horse, though it was easier to see how the limp was more pronounced. "If I hadn't been so tied up curing the plague, I surely would have noticed sooner. …Fractured, definitely."

"But it's fine now. Absolutely fine."

"Except for the loss of mobility and agility. Which I know you won't tolerate."

Corvo laughed nervously, trying to back down the stairs as quickly as possible. For all his fearlessness when it came to protecting others, jumping around on rooftops, or even staring down the Outsider, Piero was perpetually amused at his habit of apparently loathing doctors. Physicians were all well and good for other people to have flitting around them, but the first time Piero had noticed an open wound and offered to stitch it up as Corvo limped back from a mission, the other man had turned as white as a sheet and hastily stuttered that he would be absolutely positively fine, and only relented after several glasses of the best brandy that the Hound Pits had to offer. Everyone deserved their little quirks, he supposed.

"No, no, really, I'm quite fine! Perfectly all right." He continued to back his way down the stairs, even as Piero pursued him - through the guard room, into the plush palace corridor. "Absolutely nothing to worry about. It doesn't even hurt all that much. And besides -" Corvo was cut off from a shout behind him.

Piero stood a little straighter, but Corvo bent down to catch the young Empress in a hug. She was certainly looking more royal these days, trading her plain white outfit for something heavy with embroiery and lace. Corvo still showed her affection without any hesitation, and as she drew away, she looked up at him curiously. "What's going on? Why is Piero looking so angry?" Emily asked, head tilting to one side.

"It's nothing, really -"

"The Lord Protector is refusing to let me help him, Empress Emily, hence my distress."

Corvo sucked in a sharp breath, glaring at Piero, and Piero was suddenly aware that he had just crossed a line by bringing Emily into this. But he attempted to act nonchalant and crossed his arms over his chest, firm in his decision. And at the Empress' questioning look, he continued. "His leg has been broken, you see, and has healed, but at an improper angle. Hence the limp. I'm afraid the only thing to do is to break it again and set it properly, or else suffer much greater, lingering pain in the future."

Corvo only managed to keep staring at him through narrowed eyes for a few more heartbeats before having to turn to Emily and immediately starting to comfort her. That pouting expression that came just before crying was already edging onto her face, after all, given how she worried after him. "But it's all right! It's fine! I'm sure, now that the plague has been eradicated, Master Piero will…" He couldn't help a worried grimace crossing his face. "….fix… it…."

Several hours and half a bottle of brandy later, Corvo limped out of the palace's infirmary. Each teetering step was precariously balanced on a pair of crutches. And his freshly re-broken leg was entombed in a thick cast.

Piero continued to calmly wash his hands of the excess plaster, ignoring Corvo as the other man limped loudly up behind him and said nothing, but simply glared. Corvo could look intimidating if he wanted to, of course. The mask had been hardly necessary on that front. But right now all that Corvo managed was an expression similar to a pet cat who had just been given a bath against its will.

"…Stop looking at me like that. I know full well you aren't going to stab me in my sleep," Piero said haughtily, grabbing a nearby towel and drying his hands with a flourish.

"No, I wouldn't do that," Corvo admitted sulkily. "But I might sneak in and rearrange all your notes."

Piero froze in momentary terror. "You wouldn't…"

"And put them completely out of order. And I'll put some pages in upside-down, even. And make a couple into little paper sculptures and hide them in your rooms."

"…You bastard!"

"And I'll give half of them to Sokolov. After folding them into little birds." Piero threw up his hands in alarmed disgust, stomping out of the room, but Corvo retaliated by limping after him. "A whole bunch of tiny paper birds…"

Even as Piero resolutely attempted to ignore him, Corvo continued his verbal assault all the way down the hall. A remark about stuffing a page of Piero's calculations up Sokolov's nose prompted two figures at the base of a nearby set of stairs to look up.

"…I suppose if you're looking for the Lord Protector, there he is, Mr. Beechworth," the guard said worriedly, glancing up the stairwell.

Samuel chuckled a little to himself, reaching up to adjust his jacket. "So this sort of thing is normal these days, huh? Corvo running around menacing people with paper ducks?"

The guard pursed his lips in thought. "I suppose so, sir. Truth be told, I'm awful glad of it."

"Me too, lad. Me too."


	2. Second Song

Generally a broken leg meant being excused from pacing back and forth in anxiousness. But Corvo persevered. His crutches thudded along the carpet-padded floor, and he half-scowled at the floorboards before turning clumsily and limping his way across the room yet again.

"Lord Protector, sir?" One of the guards - a lanky, youthful fellow who didn't quite fill out his uniform - shuffled into the room and tossed Corvo a salute. "We've checked the perimeter again, sir. All's well. No breeches, no suspicious activity."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, sir. ...this is the third time we've checked this hour." The guard sounded exhausted enough for Corvo to let him be. But he didn't stop pacing back and forth across the small room, even as the guard continued, half-grumbling. "There's no special events planned for today, sir, but I've doubled the guard as requested anyway..."

"And the Empress Emily? Where is she?"

"Just about to leave the study after her morning lessons, sir."

Corvo nodded curtly in response, limping out of the door. He was able to move on crutches with remarkable speed, but it was still a hindrance. Perhaps for the first time in months he was actually starting to look as if he had been through all the trials he had endured. Threadbare, almost. Normally, even at the Hound Pits, he was exquisitely careful to keep Emily from seeing any trace of pain or stress. But now there was worry sitting on his brow clear enough for her to see as she walked out with Callista. He expected to hear the details of her studies for that day, but instead Emily's face drew into a pouting frown. "Is something wrong, Corvo?"

"...Hm? No, no. Of course not." And he quickly smiled in reassurance.

There wasn't any good way to tell Emily that all he had was a hunch, a gut feeling that something awful was about to happen. The clouds had parted on a sky that was just too bright and too cheerful. It felt saccharine. It made him nervous. Or maybe he had been so conditioned by months of torture and disaster to expect the worst that when peace finally came again he didn't know what to do with it. That thought made his chest ache.

As they stepped out into the gardens, he took a deep breath, forced himself to relax. Simple paranoia, that was all. Probably just feeling on edge because of how his broken leg was aching in its cast. Yes, that must be it...

He hadn't been listening, but shook his head and tried to pay attention as Emily continued to chatter at him. "..._And_ I have to write an essay on the Seven Strictures, too. It's not fair, Corvo! It's really not!"

Callista quietly rolled her eyes, walking behind the two, and Corvo chuckled. "They're all important things to know, Emily."

"But I'm the Empress now! Shouldn't I just have an advisor to remember all these things for me? Especially all the boring history... Or the Strictures." Her eyes glanced to Corvo's hand and the Outsider's brand he wore.

He caught her stare and narrowed his eyes worriedly, almost in reprimand. From across the gardens Corvo could already feel the heat of the newest High Overseer's glare on him. It was only through Emily's protection that he hadn't yet been executed for such crimes against the Abbey of the Everyman, after all, so when he spoke he made sure his voie was just a touch louder so that the Overseer could hear. "The Strictures are _especially_ important to know, Emily. They're good advice, not just for you, but for everyone. And -"

Movement to his left. He cut himself off, shoulders drawing in taut with worry, pausing mid-stride on the crutches. A guard? No, this was different - and _then_ Corvo saw it. One person stepping out of another. The guard doubled over, gagging, incapacitated. Air rippled around him as if betraying those who were lurking in the shadows. But the man who stepped forward - neatly trimmed brown hair, thick belt slung from hip to shoulder, rope of a scar over one eye - _Daud_.

He'd had a sinking feeling, at the time, that leaving Daud to his own guilt was going to be a bad decision.

And now the assassin wore a grimace, eyes red and bloodshot from lack of sleep - or something else? This wasn't the man Corvo had let go out of mercy (or spectacular cruelty, depending on how you looked at it). This was someone else entirely. Someone half out of his mind, someone who had spent too many nights staring into the Void and listening to every whisper the Outsider put in his head...

Glint of steel. Daud's knife was in his hand.

Instinctively Corvo had positioned himself between Daud and Emily. Half a heartbeat's glance over his shoulder - Callista looked as if she was about to scream - more of Daud's men were seeming to materialize out of nothing, keeping the guards occupied. "Go - RUN!" It was a roared command but both Callista and Emily instantly understood it, even if Emily seemed ready to disobey. Callista gave the young Empress no choice in the matter, scooping her up, dodging and weaving as more of Daud's men seemed to appear and dispatch the guards.

And yet... none of them seemed interested in Emily in the least. Corvo's head whipped around to the side to confirm what instinct was telling him. No guards in the garden. Daud's men were merely keeping the High Overseer busy instead of killing him outright. And Daud's eyes weren't fixed on Emily, but instead on Corvo.

The world was slowing to a stop. Emily's mouth opened in a scream. The trim on Callista's coat fluttered. Then as if suspended in ice, all was still - except for Corvo, and Daud, and the garish glinting of the sunlight on the blades in the courtyard.

Daud still wore that peculiar new look. Desperate. Hungry. Maddened.

"Let's see which Serkonan the Outsider loves best."

And then he lunged forward.

The blade sliced neatly enough through one of Corvo's crutches as he brought it up to block, but it was just the momentary distraction he needed - swift kick upwards with his injured leg (he could worry about the pain later) - Daud stumbled back. Only the barest second to catch his breath and fumble for his own sword. Parry - and again - one of his hands flailed, desperately trying to keep his balance. Daud's assault was full of relentless fury, but sloppy in its anger, and Corvo couldn't help but give a small triumphant cry as his sword lashed out, past Daud's, to strike the other man's shoulder. A glancing blow, but first blood. Corvo flung his other crutch out, making Daud have to dodge it, before curling his free hand into a fist. Daud saw the movement, mirrored it - they danced around each other, blinking to where the other had just been, never quite catching one another but keeping in constant movement to help disorient their opponent.

And the world was starting to move again, ungluing itself, bullets finally moving instead of being suspended in mid-air, the shouts from across the gardens becoming undistorted, the scream on Emily's lips finally making it into the wind for Corvo to catch - she was screaming his name -

A momentary distraction was all that Daud needed.

The blast of air caught Corvo hard, mid-blink, and flung him forward. A lucky direction, or else when he hit the high stone railing of the gazebo he would have broken his back, but there was still the unpleasant crunch of breaking ribs as he found himself bent over the marble. For a moment all he could do was gasp and gag - blood on his lips? Something metallic, anyway - before trying to push himself off, though his body was starting to become tired. Pain blazed in his torso. It surely would be one hell of a bruise. Footsteps and the murmur of the Outsider's magic behind him...

He twisted abruptly to check Daud's blade even as it was bearing down on him, and the other man snarled in a distinctly feral way. It was easy, now, to knock Corvo off-balance, and he stumbled back, bracing against the railing as best he could. But a leg in a cast was, at best, a liability in a fight such as this. No time to think - Daud had him pinned down - not even enough time to concentrate on the Outsider's magic - just parry, block, parry - and finally, an opening presented itself.

Daud's eyes, crazed and changed as they were, flared open in greedy victory. Corvo was barely aware of the blade slipping neatly into his shoulder, and how Daud's shoulders were tensing, ready to spin him around and deliver the final blow.

But Corvo's sword found its way into Daud's neck first.

The other man's expression went suddenly and horribly slack as Corvo kicked him away. It was all the signal the other assassins needed, and each of them disengaged, desperately trying to flee. Some succeeded. Some did not. Guardsmen and assassins alike ended up bleeding out into the garden grass. The High Overseer was barking out orders to his personal attachment, and evidently they were ready to pursue the assassins for use of the Outsider's magic alone. Corvo watched as Daud's chest finally stopped moving after the other man gave a rattling wheeze.

"_Corvo!_" Emily tried to squirm out of Callista's grip, tears already in her eyes, reaching out to him in panic. Callista didn't look so good herself, pale and swaying from the shock of the frenzied battle. Reinforcements of guardsmen were already pouring into the gardens, swarming around the Empress.

Dull, fiery pain in his shoulder. Corvo reached up to pull out Daud's sword almost as an afterthought, tossing it onto the ground and then immediately pressing his hand against the wound. "I'm fine, Emily, I'm fine. It's just my shoulder, nothing serious," he said quickly. "We need to get you to somewhere we know is safe."

Why was the wound still burning? Stronger now, even. Onto his fingertips, if he had to be honest. An unpleasant needling bite. And spreading down across his chest, coupled with the warmth of blood spreading on his woolen coat. He could deal with it later.

"Callista - the eastern tower is the most defensible position. At least until the all-clear is sounded. Even if Daud was coming just for me -" He took a step forward and nearly fell over. "One of the others could..." The world pitched and swooned momentarily. One of the guardsmen gingerly put a hand on his good shoulder, steadying him, before offering an arm to lean on. Corvo wasn't too proud to accept it. "...Want to... nevermind, you... you know what I mean."

Even as they hurried towards the inside of the palace once more, Corvo felt something in his gut twisting, writhing, turning frigid. He'd seen the world sway like this before. And the colors... the colors were all starting to fade from his eyes...

Emily was sobbing. "Corvo - Corvo, are you all right? You're not all right, are you?! Don't leave! If you leave -"

"I'm not going to leave you, Emily, I promise." The softer light of the indoors was at least a little less harsh. Metallic tang on his lips again. When had his mouth become so full of his tongue, and when had his tongue become so stagnant and difficult to move? Not that he would have expected anything less than a poisoned blade from Daud - but this was much swifter than that which had been poured in his drink. "I'm fine." His words were slowing down, slurring. He could tell. And he reached out with his bloodied hand for the mantlepiece of the small adjoining tower-room, fumbling, leaving red smears on the fine wood. "I'm fine, but you don't need to see this."

He drew in a deep breath. It hurt. And his heartbeat continued to thud in his ears. Callista's voice seemed garbled and distant, as if through water - she was repeating his name worriedly. A plea for him to look at her. He shook his head as if that would make the world stand still for just a little while more. The blazing heat was eating at his shoulder in earnest now. Hard to keep his eyes open. Black at the edges of his vision.

He put all of his effort into smiling for Emily even as he braced himself against the wall. "You don't have to worry, Emily. I'm fine. I just need to... to sit down for a moment."

Corvo's intention had been to make it to the chair. He took half a step forward before his knees buckled. And before he hit the floor, the world had dissolved into dull green static.


	3. Third Trill

A woman's voice. Distant. He was barely kissing consciousness, like a drowning man with his head bobbing at the top of the waves to suck in a breath mixed the seawater.

"Corvo? Corvo - open your eyes - you have to stay awake -" Movement. Shaking his shoulders. He couldn't stiffen his neck, and his head lolled helplessly from one side to the next. More words, but the waves were swamping over him, smothering him. Dull pain on his cheek - a light slap, an attempt to keep him awake. It was enough to bring him to the surface once more. "Stay with us - Corvo, focus -!"

It was enough of a shock for his tongue to unstick from the roof of his mouth, if even for a moment. "…Jess'mine?" He gasped out her name like a desperate prayer, and then the darkness took him again. He tumbled back into it, and it welcomed him, and it was all he knew.

And as they lifted him onto the bed, Callista's hands trembled before she went to touch her lips in dismayed thought, not knowing what to do with being called by the Empress' name.

Samuel knew something had gone terribly wrong as soon as Corvo was late. The man wasn't the type to be anything less than punctual, and if he ever was, it was a very purposeful sort of lateness, and Samuel hadn't made Corvo angry enough to be snubbed - at least, not for more than fifteen-odd minutes or so, he figured, even if an old sailor had let loose an insult and not realized it. By half an hour worry had solidified into cold determination, but he told himself that he would wait fifteen more minutes. He waited ten. And then he got into his boat and went to find Corvo.

He was more appreciative than he could ever express that the soldiers on guard at the tower waterlock had been told to let him in unconditionally, even if they seemed twitchy and nervous and distracted. They told him what had happened after the water bore him up to their level, and he thanked them for it. One even recognized him and pointed him towards the servant's entrance. The tower had many such passageways for servants and guards to come and go, after all, and Samuel didn't feel it was truly his place yet to walk the grand hallways reserved for his betters.

He knew the sound of Emily's sobbing, though, and that was enough incentive to slip quietly from behind a hidden passageway tucked away by a bookcase and to walk along the velvet carpets proper. At least the young Empress wasn't sobbing in sadness - not yet, anyway. Instead she was trying to wriggle out of Callista's grasp. "But I want to go see him!"

"No - it's not a good idea, Emily -" her tone was curt and shaken, and Samuel could see her knuckles turning white as she held Emily forcibly in place. "You shouldn't see such things."

"But I'm an Empress now! _And_ I want to see him!" She huffed, trying to push herself out of Callista's grip. "What if I order you to let me see him?"

Samuel cleared his throat and bowed a little; it was just the distraction the two could use. Emily was pleasantly surprised and Callista looked relieved at how Emily's attention had been divided. "I can go see how he's doin', if you'd like, your Highness."

"Please! Callista won't let me -"

"And she's right," Samuel said solemnly, though it made Emily frown deeply and huff. "But I'll go check on Master Corvo. See that he's doing all right."

Samuel knew that Corvo wouldn't be doing all right before he even opened the door. It creaked, and Emily tried to crane her head to see into the bedroom from where Callista held her in the sitting room of the suite. Samuel was careful to shut the door quickly behind him, and for a few moments, nobody noticed him. He was used to such treatment. The world didn't have much use for an old boatman. Not anymore.

Corvo was the worst Samuel had ever seen him. And he had seen the Lord Protector dizzy with hunger and pain, stumbling out from the sewers after escaping Coldridge, or dripping blood from whatever wound he had just gained on his latest adventure, or even flat on the floor, eyes rolled back in his head, very still but not quite still enough to be dead. Now it seemed the color had dripped out of his face. The white sheets on the bed were neat and clean, same with the bandages and even the sutures on his shoulder where one wound had already been patched up. It all made it worse for reasons Samuel couldn't explain. Blood on the rough battlefield was one thing, but this was another, and it made him nervous.

Piero was pacing back and forth while Sokolov wrote down something into a pad of paper. Neither of them noticed Samuel, which was as it should be. His intellectual betters needed to be left to their thinking.

"…No, no, I agree, between the tachycardia and tachypnea, it's quite clear that there must be some massive internal hemorrhagic event, I'm just not sure…"

"Better to try and solve the cause than to sit here and watch," Sokolov grunted. "He's losing blood in any case. A bit more from a scalpel won't matter much in the scheme of things."

"Of course, but surgery without any sort of anesthetic agent? Surgeons have enough trouble even with chloroform, but it's far too risky at this point to administer such a thing. And if Corvo wakes up, I'd imagine that his reaction won't be a good one. We'll need someone to hold him down. Several someones, I'd imagine -"

"Begging your pardons, sirs," Samuel said, making them both jump and turn to face him. "But if Corvo wakes up and decides he wants out of here, there ain't no man who'll be able to hold him down."

Piero chewed idly on his thumbnail in worry, and Sokolov gave a small snort that approached a laugh.

"But, if you're looking for a volunteer," Samuel continued, "I'll help as I can. Seeing a friendly face might make him slightly less likely to panic. If he wakes up, anyway."

Piero seemed, for a moment, about to say something more, but Sokolov just rubbed his hands together in front of him. At that moment it was very clear to Samuel what the difference between them was. The two had a mercurial relationship, to be certain, and both were brilliant minds that the whole Empire was in debt to. But at that moment, Piero was worrying for Corvo, the man, the life he knew, the person the Empress cherished. And Sokolov?

Well. From the gleam in his eye, this was going to be an interesting experiment, but not much more.

Samuel knew how this went - at least, he knew how this went at sea, when a cannon perhaps misfired and a sailor had to be held down while the butcher of a doctor hacked off the mangled remains of his leg. He knew how to deal with the mingling smells of blood and saltwater and even how to scrub blood from the wooden deck afterwards. But all the starched white linen and clean cotton and gleaming steel instruments made him deeply, deeply nervous.

"…I trust you've had enough practice to be able to make a Harron's incision?" Piero's hand was shaking ever-so-slightly as he held the scalpel, and Sokolov stood behind him, snapping a correction. "No - down. Yes, there, along the lines of the bruise. Good. Spleen's sure to be crushed. I suppose Corvo is lucky that he has a good constitution, if he gets through this."

Samuel caught himself gulping reflexively and tried to settle down into what he thought was a useful position. For one thing, focusing on holding Corvo's shoulders down - limp as they were - was an excuse to look away from the quickly-blossoming blood. Corvo's expression was so slack that for a moment Samuel was afraid they were merely cutting on a corpse; he held one gloved hand lighly over Corvo's face. Just the barest whisper of breath. That was enough, he supposed. Anxious and fidgety, he tried to look anywhere except the site where Piero was already peeling back flesh to expose meat and bone. Something red in the box of supplies…

"D'you think one of your health tonics might help him, Mr. Sokolov, sir?"

"Hm?" Sokolov's nose twitched. "Probably wouldn't hurt, if you can get it into him. Now…" He leaned in closer over Piero's shoulder. "Knew it was the spleen. That'll have to come out, of course."

Piero flinched nervously. "You haven't even washed your hands! Not to mention that beard -"

"Doubt it'll make much of a difference to his chances…"

Samuel set his jaw and tried to ignore the conversation, repositioning his hands. With the muscles in his neck gone limp, Corvo's head was surprisingly heavy. Perhaps it was just easy to forget the weight every person carried between their shoulders. In any case it was a little difficult to cradle it just-so, lifting Corvo's head up as he opened the flask of elixir with his teeth and tried to tip some of it into the other man's mouth. Just enough to tease down the back of his throat. He waited until he saw Corvo swallow weakly on reflex before letting a little more of the stuff flow into his mouth. Samuel wasn't at all sure what was in it, and thought it very likely that he didn't ever want to know, but he had seen the elixir help Corvo in the past. Perhaps it wouldn't be asking too much for more help again.

"…No, _there_. Are you going to actually do what needs to be done, or not?"

Piero grimaced as Sokolov snapped at him. "I _am_ doing what needs to be done -"

"I suppose this is a consequence of not staying at the Academy long enough to observe a proper vivisection, then, Joplin. Your bladework is sloppy at best."

"If you would like to take over, I would be more than happy to -"

Samuel cleared his throat. The brewing argument between the two geniuses stopped in its tracks when he began to speak. There was a steely snap to Samuel's tone, now. "Begging your pardon, sirs," he said (with tone indicating he wasn't begging anything at all now, no matter how highly he thought of them, "Corvo's a person. Not a… vivisection. And as he's a friend, I think it'd be best if perhaps we hurry a bit."

Sokolov seemed a bit chagrined, which was really the most Samuel could have hoped for. The argument simmered into a snippy murmured back-and-forth. Samuel pointedly did not watch. Instead he watched for any sign of color coming back into Corvo's cheeks, any twitch or easier breathing that might have indicated the health elixir was working. It would have been a relief to even hear a whimper, or a sob, or a scream of agony. There was nothing. Instead Corvo just remained eerily, distressingly limp.

There was the wet slap of bloody flesh hitting the bottom of a clean pan. Samuel earnestly tried not to look, but the slick organ-flesh was just gleaming with blood enough to catch his eye. Probably best to leave off any kidney pies for a few days, he considered, even if right now the thought of any meat was turning his stomach.

"…Where did you learn that stitching? Utterly unacceptable."

"I've already mended his shoulder -"

"Which is quite fine in small amounts but this needs a more experienced touch. Go fetch a new needle."

Piero stood as Sokolov all but forced his way into the seat by the bed, and gave an exasperated sigh. "Will you at least rinse your hands if I bring some warm water -"

"Only if you're quick about it."

Samuel was starting to understand, now. Given a common foe at the gates, the two brilliant minds could unite and even coexist. But their truce had been slowly crumbling as the cure for the plague stopped being interesting and began to be routine. And now there was really no adversary at all, just medical necessity. Boring and uninspiring. Perhaps, underneath all of that, they were even both worried. Piero certainly was. Sokolov was much harder to read.

One out of two wasn't that bad, Samuel supposed.

Piero had left the door ajar and Samuel had let his mind wander in musing. When he realized what was happening, it was already too late. Callista gave a strangled yelp from the other room, calling out Emily's name. The girl's eyes were full of frustrated tears, and in her rushing she didn't even use the door's handle, instead nearly body-slamming it open. Samuel saw her take in a breath, open her mouth, ready to belt out Corvo's name as if she could summon him just with a shout. But her lips went slack and the tears came into her eyes more earnest.

He understood the blood. There was a lot of it. And the inside of another person, being stitched back into order - that was not a thing for any little girl to see, much less an Empress. What Samuel did not understand was how, at that moment, a bit of Sokolov's elixir tipped into Corvo's mouth just-so, and in unconscious reflex he spluttered, coughed, and brought the red liquid to his lips in just the same way Emily had seen her mother gagging on blood before Daud dragged her away.

Emily didn't scream. She understood that as an Empress, she was expected to be too dignified for screaming. Instead she just went terrifyingly still, like a rabbit caught in the shadow of a hawk, and cried out of panicking reflex to the point where it seemed as if she might pass out every-so-often.

Three hours, four cups of tea, two offered promises of cake and one shot of rum snuck into hot cocoa later, Emily finally seemed to calm. Or, rather, she was too exhausted to sob anymore. When she fell asleep on the sofa in the antechamber leaving to Corvo's bedroom, Callista didn't try to move her. Perhaps the Empress' suite would be more secure, but that would be a matter for tomorrow. Instead she just made sure Emily had plenty of pillows, and tucked a blanket in around her.

Samuel watched through the cracked door. When Sokolov and Piero went off to argue and obsess about potential remedies for the poison, he stayed. Trying to get elixirs down Corvo's throat gave him something to do, at least, and even if he felt useless, he also felt as if he couldn't just leave.

It was well into the small hours of the night when he unstuck his dry lips and finally spoke.

"I think Emily's just a little bit broken after all of this, Master Corvo. …Makes sense, all she's been through. All _you've_ been through, too." He paused, looked down into Corvo's face, and measured his words carefully.

"And I pray you can hear me in there, and keep fighting, 'cause I don't know what she'd do without you."


	4. Fourth Feather

Corvo knew where he was before he opened his eyes.

He'd let the idea slip once to Jessamine after, perhaps, a bit too much wine or a few too many intoxicating kisses. He simply wanted to be alone with her on a beach - safe, but alone. Perhaps on the white sands of Serkonos. And then the wildly romantic part and severely practical parts of him intertwined to add in the details. The bay would have to be walled-in, of course, and the beach a private one at the back of a castle or fortress. A blanket, perhaps, if not a small pavilion tent to shield them from the sun. Or perhaps an entire bed.

So he was not surprised when he dragged his eyes open and saw white linen sheets and whispy curtains of the canopy bed framing the seashore in the distance (which in turn was enclosed by arms of walls stretching into the sea, enclosing the bay). It was a distinctly unreal landscape - the sky was tinged indigo, and he could tell that eventually the sea simply stopped, seawater surely gushing down into the vast expanse of the Void. The simulacrum was passable enough for him to be kept from immediate panic. The Outsider was laughing at him, he was sure of it. But perhaps just for this moment there was the quiet rolling in and out of the waves, the murmur of water against the sand, and -

A gentle hand on his shoulder?

It was instinct that made him flinch and turn, bracing himself and poising for a counter-attack. He expected the Outsider's slim face and black eyes, and instead he found something far more familiar. Just familiar enough to panic.

"Who -" Sea breeze hitting his shoulders, making him flinch up and scramble to cover himself in an almost maidenly way by grabbing the covers - "who are you -"

"Exactly who I seem to be. I'm not… I'm not a lie or a trick, Corvo, whatever else you think the Outsider has dreamed up." And Jessamine smiled sadly at him, reaching out to him, palms-up. "If I was, I wouldn't be here to beg you to fight when the time comes so that you can go back to Emily."

His breath caught in his throat as he waited for something to happen. For the Outsider to come and mock him, perhaps, or for this vision of Jessamine to shatter like glass or begin weeping blood. But instead she just continued to smile sadly, dark eyes full of soft concern as she reached out to pet his cheek. Her hand wasn't warm. Not exactly. Warm wasn't a concept that really made it into the Void, anyway. But there was a tingle, something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he knew on some innate level that she was real. Not a vision or a deception.

It was suddenly hard to breathe. He always felt, on some level, boorish and clumsy in comparison to her petite grace. Now more so than ever. There were so many things he had meant to say to her but now they all stuck in his throat, tangling in his teeth and snagging on his lips. He could only speak when the first sob tore through him, like a fishing hook ripping through the lips of a river bass.

So he clung to her and sobbed and apologized. He didn't know for how long. Time had a loose relationship with the Void at best. Maybe it was minutes, or hours, or days, he couldn't be sure. But she let him beg for her forgiveness, even after she had given it freely to him. He clung to her like a shipwrecked man, slowly sinking onto her shore with tired limbs that melted into her sands. The sadness had been exhausting him. There had been no time to properly mourn, or at least not mourn so deeply.

Eventually, she shifted around, her long dark hair undone from its usual bun and sweeping down to kiss the small of her back. He offered no resistance as she took his hand, guiding his arm up to kiss gently at his palm, making her way up to his shoulder - stopping at every new burn-mark that had been given to him.

Corvo's mouth hung open in confusion, but each kiss was so gentle that her meaning was absolutely clear. She loved him still, despite all that had happened. It was, to his mind, miracle enough that he forgot to sob. She silently beckoned him closer, and he obeyed, sliding into her lap and hooking his hands around her shoulders. Perhaps she said something - soft, murmured words of reassurance that Corvo had been too proud to consider needing before now. Each trembling breath that passed from his lips was a little quicker, now. Tiny, desperate pants, hot breath hitting her neck. And her hands moved down and down again, delicately tracing the lines of muscles in his back, then at his hips, ever-closer -

He tensed, clutching to her more firmly now, something between terror and shame. Although Corvo didn't lift his head to see, he could feel the muscles tensing ever-so-slightly in her neck as she frowned. Unhappy with the changes the torture had given him, perhaps. He braced himself for rejection, curling his head in closer to her, trying to draw away preemptively as if more willing to hurt himself than to be hurt by her. And her fingers probed, surely noticing all the new scars and burns, and he waited, breath tense, until finally she leaned in to nose away some of the hair falling into his face.

She didn't need to use words. She never really had. Jessamine always excelled at telling Corvo all he needed to know with a pointed look or a quirk of an eyebrow, and he had answered in turn. Silence was a language all their own, and she spoke it to him now. No words, just a kiss on the forehead. Then a beckoning push, cheek-to-cheek, until he raised his head enough for her to kiss him properly. Long and slow, hot and wet. And her deft fingers caressed him, though he only seemed to truly relax when he was sure in the knowledge that here, in the Void, all of his new scars did not ache the way they did in reality. Soon enough his hands were running along her back as she kissed at his neck with gentle ferocity, and his chest was heaving in proper panting breaths.

He had missed her. He had missed all of her. Every thrust seemed to so powerful that it rattled the bed and pressed the breath out of both of them. But it was as immutable and perfect as each wave hitting the nearby cliffs. Her hand wove into his hair, and he leaned into her touch, and she smiled at him - not just with her lips, but with her eyes - in a way that let him know he was truly forgiven for failing so miserably in his duties.

They loved each other, as sure and steady as the tides, and that was enough.

The ocean water had risen to lap at the sides of the bed by the time they settled into clinging to one another, letting the sweat dry on their skin even as they held each other close. And Jessamine smiled crookedly as she teased a bit of hair out of Corvo's face, tucking it behind his ear, and he nuzzled a little closer to her. Blinding heat and passion were cooling back into sweet melancholy once more.

"I promise, I won't leave Emily alone."

"I know you won't, Corvo." Her hand rested on his cheek. "When the time comes, you'll fight. But for right now…" She guided him a little closer. "There's no shame in resting."

And he believed her, and was content to listen to her heartbeat and the waves echoing in the bay.


End file.
